Category: culture

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What can a Census really tell us about Australia, and about ourselves?

It’s a couple of weeks until the next Census in Australia. Sweet. Can’t wait. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has a nifty flash application at the moment called ‘Spotlight’. Check it out. It has lots of interest stats along the way. Here’s the snapshot it spat out for me.

It might be useful for getting a snapshot on your suburb? Good for knowing and loving people in it? Maybe? Either way the Census is important for understanding our mission field. Do you use ABS data much in gaining a profile on your community? If so, how?

(h/t Tim)

ps – maybe the census doesn’t pick this up, but Ministers of Religion work more than 8 hours a day!

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The Rise of the 2nd Wave Prosperity Gospel

Mark Sayers – at his new blog location – has an insightful post comparing the old and new wave prosperity gospel. It’s a development of his ideas from The Vertical Self.

Here’s a snippet:

It offers self actualisation rather than self denial. Social Justice without personal cost. Discipleship without responsibility. It repaints the Christian life as a journey fueled by hype. For young Christian who feel marginalised in a secular society which trades in hip, it replaces Jesus call to take up ones cross, with the lure that you can believe and still be cool. It loves John 1o:10 but ignores Luke 9:23.

Read the rest.

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OK Go – End Love – Official Video

OK Go make creative film clips. Here’s one. Here’s another. And another still:

Tech specs:

“The fastest we go is 172,800x, compressing 24 hours of real time into a blazing 1/2 second. The slowest is 1/32x speed, stretching a mere 1/2 second of real time into a whopping 16 seconds. This gives us a fastest to slowest ratio of 5.5 million. If you like averages, the average speed up factor of the band dancing is 270x. In total we shot 18 hours of the band dancing and 192 hours of LA skyline timelapse – over a million frames of video – and compressed it all down to 4 minutes and 30 seconds! Oh and don’t forget, it’s one continuous camera shot.”

(from here)

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South Sudan: A New Nation Rises

Praise God for the ways that he’s answered prayer for Southern Sudan! The Republic of South Sudan is the newest nation in the world, with Independence Day on July 9, 2011. Read about the nation at Wikipedia and SBS World News. Pray from here and here.

PHOTO CREDIT: A man waves South Sudan’s national flag as he attends the Independence Day celebrations in the capital Juba, July 9, 2011. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Check out all the other amazing pics over on Boston Big Picture.